Earlier this year, Lorraine Currie was appointed the new chief executive of Sciaf. In this podcast for The Tablet, assistant editor Ruth Gledhill talks to Lorraine about her story of how she progressed into international development, of the work being done in the field by Sciaf and of exciting plans for the future.

You can find out more about Sciaf, including how to donate to the charity’s Advent appeal, here.

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To the surprise and disappointment of many on the left, Donald Trump won the US election. What part did Catholics play in this? And what does this mean for the Democrats, going forward? In our latest podcast, and the first of a series on this subject, Ruth Gledhill, assistant editor of The Tablet, talks to Michael Sean Winters, The Tablet’s US correspondent and senior journalist at National Catholic Reporter.

You can find this podcast on all the usual outlets, including Spotify and Apple.

The environment is a key platform of the papacy of Francis and his encyclical will form a significant part of his legacy over decades if not centuries. So why has Laudato Si’ not taken root in the US as it has in the UK and elsewhere? Could one reason be the polarisation of society and Church where climate change has itself become so politicised? Yet the lack of engagement with Laudato Si’ is not along Democrat-Republican lines, it seems to cross the political divide. At the root of it is how to bring the common good into debate in a society that, across all parties, is fundamentally libertarian, whether in regards to economics or personal morality.

In this podcast, Michael Sean Winters and Sebastian Gomes talk to Tablet assistant editor Ruth Gledhill about a conference Michael helped organise on the encyclical, and from which Sebastian, of America magazine, put together a video which has some of the answers and may contain clues as to how we can all continue to progress this cause as we engage this month of September with this year’s Season of Creation. The radical new direction that is being brought to “The Way Forward” gatherings is bringing bishops, theologians and lay leaders together around the table.

This podcast emerges from the third such gathering at the University of San Diego in February 2024. The aim is to foster honest dialogue within the Catholic Church and to promote the path set out by the Second Vatican Council and Pope Francis. In this year’s meeting the focus was on implementing Francis’s landmark encyclical on care of the earth, Laudato Si’. Watch the video here.

This second video is from the second “Way Forward” initiative in 2023, on synodality. 

Michael Sean Winters is a columnist with the National Catholic Reporter and he is the U.S. correspondent for The Tablet. He is also a fellow at the Center for Catholic Studies at Sacred Heart University. His articles have been published by the New York Times magazine, New Republic, America, and other publications. He is one of the organisers of the Way Forward gatherings. The first was at Loyola University Chicago, and focused on Pope Francis and the ecclesiology of Vatican II. The second was at Boston College and focused on synodality. The most recent gathering was at the University of San Diego and focused on Laudato Si’. In addition to the Center for Catholic Studies at Sacred Heart University, the gatherings are co-sponsored by the Boisi Center at Boston College, the Center for Religion and Culture at Fordham University and the Hank Center at Loyola Chicago.  Sebastian Gomes is Executive Editor of Audio and Video at America Magazine, the Jesuit media organization based in New York City. He directed the film on “The Way Forward” conference on Laudao Si’, that took place in San Diego in February 2024.

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In September, with JC Journeys, we are going on pilgrimage to Patmos, led by Fr Nicholas King SJ. In this podcast, Ruth Gledhill of The Tablet talks to Fr King about this beautiful island and its place and meaning in the Bible. On this trip, pilgrims can visit the Cave of Revelation, the Monastery of St John and there will be a daily Mass, celebrated outside wherever possible.

Catholic bishops have called for new treaties to regulate weaponised drones and lethal autonomous weapons systems. In a new paper, “Called to be Peacemakers”, the bishops of England and Wales also call for a “global moratorium” on lethal autonomous weapons systems. In this podcast, Ruth Gledhill, assistant editor of The Tablet, talks to Bishop William Kenney, one of the authors, about the challenges and opportunities facing the Catholic Church and wider community on the latest weapons technologies, the continuing debate over nuclear deterrence, and what we can all do to help. Read the latest Tablet article on the paper here.

Ruth Gledhill, assistant editor of The Tablet, discusses with Fr Alban McCoy OFM Conv the question of Pope Francis and his approach to the war in Ukraine, and where this fits in the context of just war theory.

Following on from Plato and Socrates, in the second in our series on why truth still matters, Fr Alban McCoy, OFM Conv, and Ruth Gledhill, assistant editor of The Tablet, discuss St Thomas Aquinas, 750 years after his death.

Journalist Ruth Gledhill is in conversation with Catholic priest, philosopher and theologian Fr Alban McCoy OFM Conv in the first in a new series of podcasts.

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Award-winning writer and former Financial Times journalist Jimmy Burns’ latest book A Faithful Spy, based on previously undisclosed personal private papers of former MI6 and MI5 officer, Walter Bell, gives a remarkable insight into the working of British Intelligence. In this Tablet podcast, Emily Buchanan of the BBC talks to Jimmy Burns about the book and some of the startling things that he uncovered during his research.

In this article in The Tablet Jimmy Burns gives further insight into the life of Walter Bell.

The 2023 synod summit in the Vatican ended with a series of openings for reform, including on the role of women, training of priests and a re-think of the church’s sexual teaching. 

For those in the hall, a vast majority agreed that the synod process and style — which saw cardinals and lay people gathered around tables listening to each other — is how church business should be done in the future. 

But what happens next? Synod 2023 is the first of two assemblies, with another due in October 2024. 

In this episode, I talk again to Myriam Wijlens, who took part in the synod as an expert adviser. Professor Wijlens, a theologian and canon lawyer who has been closely involved in the synod process, stressed a general agreement that women need an enlarged role in the church but a “struggle” over how this should happen in practice. The question of women deacons is to be further studied, and Wijlens said a “conclusion” to the discussion over the possibility of women deacons could take place at the synod next year. 

Professor Wijlens teaches at the University of Erfurt in Germany. She said that the new synod process marks a “tremendous shift”, which gave everyone the same amount of time to speak, whether they were an Asian woman or a European cardinal. 

“There was a general agreement: we have to attend to this question [of women]”, she said. “And there was a great agreement that women do make up the larger portion of active participants in the life of the Church. And then there comes a struggle because we all come from different cultures and from different backgrounds. How does that unfold in real life, on the ground?”  

Professor Wijlens points out that a critical challenge is implementing synodality at the local level. But it can no longer be a question of waiting for the authorities in Rome about what to do. 

“How can Rome say what you have to do in the inner city of London and in the inner city of Manila or the countryside of Alaska at the same time,” she said. It is up to bishops and local leaders to “take up your own responsibility” and implement synodal reforms in their local areas. 

The Church’s Radical Reform podcast is sponsored by the Centre for Catholic Studies at the University of Durham in partnership with The Tablet. 

Producer: Silvia Sacco

Editor: Jamie Weston 

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